


Warmer and Brighter

by elaby



Series: Signy's Saga [1]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Andrastianism, Angst, Cullen is a Good Friend, Cullen is awkward, F/F, Faithful Inquisitor, Gen, Hopeful Ending, In Your Heart Shall Burn, Josephine Montilyet is a Disney princess, RIP Haven, Sweet, burning down Haven, crying on your friends, faith - Freeform, red lyrium is really freaking creepy, signy trevelyan, so much snow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-19
Updated: 2018-09-19
Packaged: 2019-07-14 12:41:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16040690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elaby/pseuds/elaby
Summary: The Herald of Andraste stumbles out of a snowstorm and finds herself in a makeshift Inquisition camp, carrying a far greater burden than she thinks she can shoulder.--Signy pulled in a breath that was just this side of panicky. Her head was spinning. There were too many questions, and they were all too big: where can we go? Where is Corypheus? And Maker’s mercy, with Haven gone, what will we do now?Then the warmth of Josephine’s hand smoothed over her forehead, caressed her hair with gentle fingers that eased Signy’s churning thoughts. “You must rest, your worship,” Josephine said softly. Signy wished she wouldn’t call her that. But if she protested, Josephine might take her hand away. Signy let it go and slipped beneath the surface of consciousness again, and this time her dreams were warmer.





	Warmer and Brighter

**Author's Note:**

> My Inquisitor's name is Signy Trevelyan.
> 
> Contains spoilers for In Your Heart Shall Burn.

All she could see was white. Even the dim, gray shapes of trees and cliffs had vanished, faded away behind the wall of falling snow. The world had gone away. Still Signy moved forward.

Her legs were stumps. She was sure she had no feet anymore, just pegs that pushed holes through the thigh-deep drifts. 

And then she didn’t even have those, and the snow closed around her waist as she sunk into it, brought down at last. But then, then, one final miracle from Andraste...

Voices.

“There she is!”

“Thank the Maker!”

Cassandra slid down in front of the Herald, grasping her by the shoulders before she could pitch forward. Signy’s eyes were bleary, drifting, her lips blue, and Cassandra tried in vain to catch her gaze. “Lady Trevelyan, stay with me.”

Signy’s head drooped, but then Cassandra’s hands were on either side of her face. Signy’s vision focused and things became solid, realer: Cassandra’s steel-gray eyes, her firm, urgent voice. “Stay with me.  _ Signy. _ ”

It  _ was _ real, truly real. “Cassandra,” Signy choked in a watery voice, and then she crumpled into Cassandra’s shoulder and clung with an iron grip that the Seeker felt even through her thick leather armor.

Cassandra shot an alarmed look up at Cullen. “Commander, help me!” And although Signy was as tall as he was, Cullen hoisted her up and carried her out of the white nothingness.

\--

Flickering firelight. A warm hand curled around hers. Signy forced her eyes open, aching with every breath, and saw Josephine’s blurry face.

That face turned momentarily, taking away the comfort Signy found in her worried brown eyes. She felt colder in its absence. “Leliana, she’s awake!”

Signy’s mind began to race, a broken cartwheel trying to roll down a rocky path. Cassandra, Cullen, Josephine...and she just called out to Leliana, so...

“Varric?” Signy croaked, grasping for names. “Sera? Dorian? Solas?”

“Hush, my lady,” Josephine said, bending over her, and now both of her hands were around Signy’s, pressing it softly. “Yes, they are all here with us. As is the Iron Bull and his men, and First Enchanter Vivienne, and Warden Blackwall. Many were lost at Haven, your worship, but many more were saved. Thanks to you.”

How many was “many,” Signy wanted to ask, but to her shame, the part of her that didn’t want to hear the answer was stronger right now.

“Where are we?” Signy asked instead. She could barely remember the last several hours, and it wasn’t as if, in the whiteout, she could take notice of where she was going. Only forward.

“We are...not certain,” Josephine replied carefully. “Somewhere in the Frostbacks. We found a relatively sheltered place and set up camp to regroup and search for anyone we may have missed.”

Signy pulled in a breath that was just this side of panicky. Her head was spinning. There were too many questions, and they were all too big: where can we go? Where is Corypheus? And Maker’s mercy, with Haven gone, what will we do now?

Then the warmth of Josephine’s hand smoothed over her forehead, caressed her hair with gentle fingers that eased Signy’s churning thoughts. “You must rest, your worship,” Josephine said softly. Signy wished she wouldn’t call her that. But if she protested, Josephine might take her hand away. Signy let it go and slipped beneath the surface of consciousness again, and this time her dreams were warmer.

\--

Late that night, the snow fell in sparse curtains on waves of lashing wind, but the mood in the camp was one of cautious hope. Mother Giselle had seen to that. Josephine blew on her frigid fingers, numb after writing dozens of missives on delicate paper for Leliana’s ravens to carry, but she smiled faintly nevertheless. Strange how something as simple as a song could turn the tide.

Speaking of which...it had been hours since she’d seen the Herald. Signy needed rest, certainly, but Josephine found herself checking on her far more often than necessary, considering the healers’ attentiveness. It couldn’t hurt to be sure that she was sleeping soundly.

But there was no one on Signy’s cot beneath the healers’ tent. Josephine frowned, worry flickering through her in a discomforting ripple before she countered it with pragmatism. A quick circuit of the camp turned up no sign of Signy, but the place was such a jumble of people and carts and makeshift tents that there were any number of reasonable places she might be.

Josephine passed by Cullen just as he finished talking to a pair of soldiers who stood guard by the stores. She caught his eye.

“Commander, have you seen the Herald? I’ve been unable to find her.”

Cullen’s brows drew together. He was always one to jump to the worst possible conclusion, Josephine remembered; perhaps she should’ve asked someone else. He strode up to her with his hand resting on the pommel of his sword.

“No,” he said tensely, “but I’ll look for her.”

“I’m sure it is nothing to worry about, Commander,” Josephine replied, but she didn’t sound all that sure. Cullen nodded to her and made his way to the outskirts of the camp, planning to search the perimeter first.

He’d had a feeling. It wasn’t long, in fact, before he spotted someone bundled in a cloak, sitting on the edge of a cart behind an out-of-the-way cluster of tents. It was Signy, looking exhausted with strands of her hair escaping from its bun and stirring in the cold wind.

Cullen approached hesitantly. Perhaps she wanted to be left alone. But when she heard the crunch of his boots in the snow and looked up, the faintest of wan smiles appeared on her face, and Cullen seated himself on the cart beside her.

“Come to find some quiet?” he asked.

“I’m not sure if quiet is what I’m looking for or not,” Signy replied. The last few hours had been overwhelming, but now that she was out here, being alone didn’t seem much better. Cullen said nothing, not pushing. There was so much crowding her thoughts that she didn’t know where to start.  “Did you see him?” she asked presently. “Corypheus?”

Cullen shook his head. “Only momentarily, through the spyglass.”

Signy wished he had, if only so someone else could’ve understood the horror of his height, the red lyrium devouring him, the madness on his face. She’d been ready to describe it to Cullen, but now she found she couldn’t. Instead, she opened her left hand at gazed at the palm, watching the almost phosphorescent light of the mark that always pulsed, barely visible this far away from a rift, beneath her skin.

“I didn’t know until then,” she said softly. “But when Corypheus spoke to me, when he said the mark was something he created himself and was intended for him... I knew he was wrong. I’ve never been surer of anything since this whole thing began. Andraste gave the mark to me.”

Cullen didn’t respond. He hadn’t been sure how he felt about it, either, until only a few hours ago. An entire camp full of people joining in spontaneous song tends to stir the soul more than one expects.

Signy closed her fist around the mark. It was always disconcerting, but now it gave her a feeling of dread. “And you’d think that’d be great, right? But now that I know it  _ is _ blessing from her, some things have become...scarily clear.”

“Such as?”

“All the people who joined the Inquisition... Those who came to Haven for protection. If this mark  _ wasn’t _ given to me by Andraste, if it was only some sort of magical accident, I could believe they were just wishful thinkers. In times like this, people cling to anything, right? I might even call them misguided. Gullible. They’d be putting themselves in the way of danger for a superstition.” She didn’t want to open her hand again, but at the same time she had a perverse desire to see the mark, like probing at a wound even though you know it’ll hurt. “But now that I know I  _ am _ her Herald...” Her throat closed around the words and a tight heat grew in her chest, prickling up her neck.

Cullen remained silent. Words were not his forte, but he could at least listen, for as long as it took.

When Signy found her voice again, it was low, scratchy. “They’re my responsibility. Every one of them. They were  _ right _ to look to me, and I couldn’t protect them. All I was given was this mark; no insight, no instructions. The Chantry says Andraste didn’t have instructions either, but every time I think of that comparison...” The vise that seemed to squeeze her lungs tightened and the first cold fingers of panic started to tickle along her spine. “I c— I can’t be that—”

She curled her fist close to her chest as if that would somehow contain the mark. It was no use trying to say any more, even if she’d wanted to. The tears were already falling, sharply cold on her cheeks in this alpine wind.

Cullen stiffened. Her face was turned away, but there was still no mistaking. After moments of fretful consideration, he put his arm around her shoulders. Signy flinched, which in turn caused Cullen to jump, but before he could take his arm away she was leaning into him with her face buried in the safe-smelling depth of his fur collar.

Some time later, he thought fit to attempt to say something in the way of comfort—“attempt” being the operative word, he thought with chagrin. “Lady Trevelyan... Ah, I...”

At that she straightened and scrubbed both hands down her face. “Cullen,” she said, with wryness only slightly dulled by a stuffy nose, “anyone whose clothes I’ve cried on has automatically earned the right to call me ‘Signy.’”

He found himself chuckling. “Signy, then. I’m not the best—” He stopped, reworded. “I wish I had answers to give you, but I’m in no position to offer advice. I’ve carried heavy burdens before, perhaps like the weight you bear, perhaps not. But my solution was not to address it at all...and that does no one any good.”

Signy threaded her fingers together, hiding the mark, but she didn’t move from his side. “Right now I wish I could do the same. Just pretend none of this is happening. But I know you’re right.”

“If it helps...” Cullen flicked his gaze tentatively at her. “You may be a living symbol of the Inquisition, but you’re not the only member of it. We know better than to make a single person responsible for every decision. No one is expecting you to do this alone, Herald of Andraste or not.”

Signy’s posture settled, the tension in her huddled frame easing like an exhalation. She leaned gently into Cullen’s shoulder. “It does help.”

\--

Not long after, Cullen and Signy appeared out of the snowy dark and into the circle of firelight around the healers’ tents. Josephine sat on the edge of a makeshift bench beside Leliana, utterly alert, and when she spotted them, she rose. Relief flooded her face.

“Herald! You really should stay within sight of the healers, my lady. We still don’t know the full extent of the wounds you sustained...” She had been hugging a folded blanket to her chest, and now she held it out, offering it to Signy. Her voice was all business, but her eyes betrayed concern and a certain shyness. “It is imperative you stay warm.”

Josephine gave Cullen a grateful nod as Signy took the blanket from her. “Come sit by the fire, both of you,” Josephine said, but Cullen replied with a little bow.

“I must decline, as much as I’d like to stay. I’m certain there’s a fight breaking out over warm boots somewhere.”

Signy took Josephine’s advice, though, and settled down on the bench. Her chilled, wind-chapped skin prickled as it warmed. Josephine sat down as well, between Signy and Leliana, and offered the Herald a tired smile.

“I know it must be trying for you,” Josephine said, “this inactivity and waiting. As it is for us all. But your return brought hope to many hearts today.”

“If falling face-down in a snowdrift is all it takes, I’ll inspire hope any day,” Signy replied with a self-deprecating chuckle. Josephine smiled back, but Signy noticed the way she folded her arms closely around herself and rubbed them with her hands. Signy’s heart jumped and she felt bold for the first time since she woke up in a cave beneath the ruins of Haven.

Wordlessly, Signy unfolded the blanket and swung it around her shoulders, then held one arm open, inviting. Josephine met her eyes and her smile took on a hint of surprise, but it was also a true smile. She slid closer on the bench, and when Signy settled the blanket around the two of them, the fire seemed much warmer and brighter than before.


End file.
